Hot on the heels of our story yesterday announcing the team working on the new Wii RPG, King Story, we can now provide a few more details on what the game is all about. It's not much, but it's a start.

According to the game's executive producer, the original idea behind King Story was to create a game that allowed a player to experience creating a world and seeing what happens from a distant perspective as the people within the world live out their AI-driven lives. However, at the same time they also wanted to allow the player to become one of the inhabitants of the world and experience the storyline of its residents personally. As this rough concept was ironed out, the main character was developed into a sickly young boy who discovers a magic crown that gives him the ability to command others. He goal is to turn his home, which sits isolated in the wilderness fields, into a thriving kingdom.

The power of the crown will lead people to follow the young king. As he gathers the residents of the area, he can give them commands to do things like cultivate the land, build houses and roads, and search for treasure. Different tasks will require a different number of people to complete, and the proficiencies of the individual characters may also factor into their ability to accomplish their goals. The king can even lead the people against the monsters, such as a medievally-styled dragon, that pose a threat to his kingdom. The larger the enemy, the more people the king will need with him. The game's character designer, Hideo Minaba, noted that development and destruction are the key elements of the game and each individual plays one of those two roles.

When not being ordered about through the crown's persuasive powers, each of the individuals in the kingdom will live out their own lives according to unique AI routines. Characters will work, eat, loiter, sleep, and develop relationships with other characters. The programming team explained that memory will play an important role in the character AI, as the individuals will remember their relationships and the things that happen during the game. Their behavior will be driven by their profession, whether they're shopkeepers, soldiers, or so on. By communicating and interacting with the citizens, the player can explore the personal stories of the characters in the kingdom, like in many RPGs.

It's still unclear what direction the larger, overall story will take, though it seems like the more powerful monsters might represent standard bosses. More information will likely be revealed on King Story in the coming weeks, as it's slated to appear at September's Tokyo Game Show in advance of its 2008 release.